Violent video games and aggression The moderating role of personality

The current study examined the moderating role of the Five Factor Model of personality in the relationship between violent video games and aggression. Participants consisted of 167 undergraduate students (79 females and 88 males) who completed the experiment in three phases. In phase one, participants completed a questionnaire packet, which consisted of a demographics questionnaire and a measure of personality. In phase two, participants were randomly assigned to play either one of three non-violent or three violent video games for 15 minutes. In phase three, participants completed a measure of aggression, which consisted of a set of three ambiguous story stems that participants were asked to complete. Results showed no significant main effect of video game condition, although this effect did approach significance, and no significant interactions for any of the FFM traits. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and policymaking.